Contact 13

Dirty Dining: Three restaurants tie for dirtiest dining

CREATED Oct. 24, 2012

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  • It's a three-way tie for the worst restaurant inspection in this week's Dirty Dining. Video by ktnv.com

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Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- It's a three-way tie for the worst restaurant inspection in this week's Dirty Dining.

Contact 13 Chief Investigator Darcy Spears reports on spoiled food and moldy ice machines from Henderson to the Las Vegas Strip.

All three eateries tied for the dirtiest dining got 39-demerit "C" grades.

Anything over 40 is immediate closure so they're all still open.

We begin at Santora's Sunset Bar & Grill on East Sunset in Henderson, where inspectors described vegetables as fuzzy, slimy, moldy and spoiled.

Darcy: And those aren't words you want to hear associated with your produce.
Manager Nancy Ansteth: No. Not at all.  Not at all.  We just re-opened about two months ago and we weren't at the top of our game.

Inspectors also found dried, old food debris on the meat slicer and inside the microwave. And both pink and black mold in the ice machine.

Nancy: We've corrected all those problems and we will go forth and we will never have any issues anymore.

But in the short time we were there, we found Santora's still committing some of the violations they'd been written up for.  Like failing to display their health grade card, which we found hidden behind a curtain. Manager Nancy Ansteth fixed that after we pointed it out.

Nancy: That was...
Darcy: Somebody who didn't want it seen?
Nancy: Right, right, right.

Then there's the issue of allowing customers to violate their no smoking policy -- like the couple we saw at the bar.

Darcy: And that's a repeat violation now.  So why would your bartender allow them to smoke if you're a No Smoking facility?

Nancy says it's a relatively new policy.

"And we'll deal with the bartenders on that."

Down on the Strip, Fat Tuesday inside the Fourm Shops at Caesars also earned a 39-demerit "C" grade for things like a dirty beverage mix barrel and uncleanable wicker chip baskets.

The ice machine wasn't pleasant to look at -- black slime is a repeat violation here.

Also, the ceiling tiles were falling down in several locations and inspectors found flies buzzing around.

The owner of Fat Tuesday wouldn't go on camera, but did give us a statement saying 85% of the violations were corrected within three days. They pride themselves on cleanliness and they'll be putting all employees through a re-training program.

Our last stop is the bakery inside Marketon on East Desert Inn where inspectors found a lot of expired food.

Jennie O franks and cheese were both nine days past their date. Packaged ham was outdated by two and half weeks. Carne asada and chicken were both about a week old and the heavy cream was a month past its use-by date.

Darcy: There's pictures showing mold growing on top of the whipped topping and it's not a pretty thing to look at.
Store Director Lus Reyes: Everything is fixed right now, so...

But inspectors found a bunch of stuff that wasn't just expired, it was outright spoiled: black, mushy tomatoes, sprouts that had liquefied, and potatoes that were wet and pitted.

Flies buzzed around the food prep area and on food contact surfaces.

Inspectors also found...

Darcy: Dirty milky water on the pans in storage, utensils with dried food debris, a food paddle on top of some dirty pipes. That's not something that I assume you want to see happening back there.
Lus: Oh no, absolutely not.  Everything is fixed right now so I'm just waiting for them to come back and re-check.

All three restaurants are scheduled for re-inspection within the next few days.